Gertrude's Fear Cipher

A Little Background

A base-n counting system is one where you increase to the next “place” at the next degree of n - in other words, you have your n^0, n^1, n^2, n^3, and so on and so forth. Base-10 is the usual method of counting, where you have your 1s, your 10s, your 100s, your 1000s…you get the idea.

In base-14, which is just like base-10 if you’ve got two extra fingers on each hand, you go from your 1s to your 14s to your 196s to your 2477s and keep going until it gets really complicated. Most of that is irrelevant to this specific code, though.

So, if 10 (pronounced one-oh) base-14 is 14, how do you notate 10, 11, 12, and 13 from base-10? With letters! In other words, to count all the fingers and toes on a standard human, you would count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, a, b, c, d, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.

Have I lost you yet? Good.

The Alphanumeric Code

So. This is a pretty basic substitution cipher, really. First step is to convert each letter to a number in base-14:

LETTER	NUMBER	LETTER	NUMBER
A	1	N	10
B	2	O	11
C	3	P	12
D	4	Q	13
E	5	R	14
F	6	S	15
G	7	T	16
H	8	U	17
I	9	V	18
J	a	W	19
K	b	X	1a
L	c	Y	1b
M	d	Z	1c

Under this system, “Gertrude” would be written as 7 5 14 16 14 17 4 5, where as “Tim Stoker” would be 16 9 d 15 16 11 b 5 14.

But that’s only if you’re doing a straight substitution cipher.

Which we are not, family. Oh, no, indeed.

Fear Coding

Gertrude assigned each of the fourteen Fears a number using numerology, and (with the exception of the Slaughter, which simply is) one of their alternative names. Each letter is assigned a number 1-9 (this is from actual numerology):

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I
J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R
S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z

Change each letter to a number, then add them together into a single number as follows:

IT KNOWS YOU = 9+2+2+5+6+5+1+7+6+3 = 46
I DO NOT KNOW YOU = 9+4+6+5+6+2+2+5+6+5+7+6+3 = 66
MOTHER OF PUPPETS = 4+6+2+8+5+9+6+6+7+3+7+7+5+2+1 = 78
TOO CLOSE I CANNOT BREATHE = 2+6+6+3+3+6+1+5+9+3+1+5+5+6+2+2+9+5+1+2+8+5 = 95
FILTH = 6+9+3+2+8 = 28
TERMINUS = 2+5+9+4+9+5+3+1 = 38
THE LIGHTLESS FLAME = 2+8+5+3+9+7+8+2+3+5+1+1+6+3+1+4+5 = 73
THE FOREVER BLIND = 2+8+5+6+6+9+5+4+5+9+2+3+9+5+4 = 82
VISCERA = 4+9+1+3+5+9+1 = 32
BLOOD = 2+3+6+6+4 = 21
FORSAKEN = 6+6+9+1+1+2+5+5 = 35
IT IS LIES = 9+2+9+1+3+9+5+1 = 39
THE SLAUGHTER = 2+8+5+1+3+1+3+7+8+2+5+9 = 54
THE FALLING TITAN = 2+8+5+6+1+3+3+9+5+7+2+9+2+1+5 = 68

In the case of I Do Not Know You, where the number is doubled, we will also add those two digits together - 6+6 = 12. That’s important.

Putting It All Together

Now it’s time to shift the letters around! Set out the alphabet with the numbers below it:

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

a

b

c

d

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

1a

1b

1c

Select the Fear you want to use as the key. Let’s say we’re looking at the statement Tim was looking at in Chapter 18 - so this would be the End, or rather, Terminus. Our number is 38.

Separate the digits: 3 8

Now here’s the really fun part. First we’re going to shift the letters three spaces to the left:

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

A

B

C

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

a

b

c

d

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

1a

1b

1c

…and then shift the numbers eight spaces to the right:

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

A

B

C

15

16

17

18

19

1a

1b

1c

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

a

b

c

d

10

11

12

13

14

Congratulations, you have now scrambled this into an unnecessarily complicated cipher.

A bonus puzzle for you!

A message from the Eye:

1b 18 11 5 b 15 13 4 8 17 13 16 a 1a 1b 9, 11 5 b 1a 13 c 17 17 c 17 4 3 5 8 17 a 1b 3 17 5 4 11 5 b 8 1a 13 4 16 9 a 1a 13 4 1b 16 b.

Feel free to message me on Discord or Tumblr if you cipher it out!